


Ignore Me If You See Me

by julielouise (orphan_account)



Series: Live It Up While You Can (You Don't Get Another Shot) [1]
Category: All Time Low, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, The Academy Is...
Genre: M/M, also hal for dialogue, also i am not in college so ignore anything that is blatantly wrong, it's super gay and there's lots of yelling, shout out to mel for coming up w the original idea and a lot of the dialogue, the college au no one asked for and i wrote anyway, they're just?? gay and eat pizza there's no plot here anYWAY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 02:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 13,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4123027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/julielouise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In retrospect, Ray would never have taken the RA position if he'd known that the students in his dorm did nothing but complain about their roommates. And, in retrospect, he really should have seen all this coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> lots of credit to mel for the original idea for this fic and providing a lot of the dialogue, and credit to hal for dialogue as well. there's more notes at the end and pls enjoy~

William realized a month into his freshman year of college that, no, checking the ‘random room assignment’ selection wasn’t a very good idea. 

Okay, that wasn’t necessarily true. It probably would have been just fine if he had gotten anyone other than Gabe fucking Saporta as his roommate. Gabe was loud and rude and he left his dirty laundry everywhere and-

“Ow! That hurt, asshole.” William said, glancing up to where Gabe was standing by the door of their dorm. “What the hell did you throw, anyway?”

“Who cares?” Gabe asked. He held up his index finger and bent down, grabbing a hoodie off of the floor. “I’m leaving, just so you know.”

“Off to find whichever girl you had in here last night?”

“You’re funny. I do actually go to class sometimes.”

“I’m sure.”

“Then after class I’m going to a party,” he stopped. “Probably. I don’t remember. Anyway I’ll be back tonight. Don’t wait up for me, Billy.”

“Don’t call me that, asshole!” William called as Gabe walked out the door. It took him a minute to realize he was grinning and shut that the fuck down because he was not going to let himself grin about Gabe Saporta. 

Instead of thinking about it he started to tidy up his side of the room, but realized he didn’t really have one anymore because Gabe’s shit was everywhere. Like, everywhere. There was dirty laundry on every flat surface, including William’s desk, so he couldn’t find any of his books. That annoyed him more than anything. He started grabbing pieces of Gabe’s laundry off of his stuff and throwing it towards Gabe’s bed and could almost see his desk when he realized that he’d only moved purple hoodies and honestly who the fuck needed so many purple hoodies what the fuck. 

He’d completely cleared off his desk and started putting books back on his bookshelf when he realized one of them was missing and he was about to call Gabe and demand to know where his copy of Heart of Darkness was and tell him to stop moving his books Jesus Christ, Gabe, when his phone started to ring.  
“Hello?”

“Billy!” Gabe’s voice crackled through the speaker and William rolled his eyes.

“I said don’t call me that. Hey, where is my-,”

“Don’t care. I left my psych book in the room so I’m sending Pete Wentz to come get it because I need it. Thought I’d let you know so you don’t think he’s some creeper or something like that.”

“Who the fuck is Pete Wentz?”

“Short guy. Doesn’t really matter, just let him in and he’ll get the book and leave without bugging you.”

“Whatever. Anyway, where’s my-,”

“Dude,” Gabe said. “I still don’t care. Bye.” There was a click and the line went dead and William decided that Gabe Saporta was, like, king of the assholes. He also decided that he didn’t really care to have Pete Wentz, whoever the hell that was, in his dorm room for too long, so he went to what was supposed to be Gabe’s side of the room and grabbed the psych book so he could just give it to the guy and make him leave. 

Pete Wentz, apparently, had other ideas. 

There was a knock at the door and William opened it and, yeah, Gabe had said Pete was short but William didn’t think he had meant that short. Quite honestly, William thought he’d look more at home in a middle school hallway than standing outside of a college dorm room, but he kept that to himself. The dude also had bad fringe hanging in front of his eyes, and William thought he might have been wearing eyeliner. Not that he could really tell. 

“Hey,” Pete said. “Gabe wanted me to get his book or something.”

“Yeah,” William said. He grabbed the thing and handed it to Pete. “Tell Gabe not to leave his shit next time.” Pete nodded and William went to close the door but Pete stepped in a little bit further.

“So you’re William?”

“Uh. Yeah. Why?”

“Gabe mentions you a lot,” Pete said with a shrug. Hearing that kind of wanted to make William wash his ears with bleach, but he resisted the urge.

“I’m sure. Anyway, I’m kind of busy and Gabe probably needs his book. Bye, Pete,” he said, closing the door and shaking his head a little. Gabe talked about him a lot? Yeah, right. 

William wanted to wash his entire head in bleach when the thought didn’t completely disgust him. 

King of the assholes, he reminded himself as he went back to cleaning. King of the assholes.


	2. Chapter 2

Patrick tended to think he was a pretty easy going guy, to be quite honest. He tried to put others before himself and be nice and respectful to everyone he met. Then he got to college and met Gerard Way and his easy going attitude flew out the fucking window. 

Gerard wasn’t like, awful or anything, but the two were so different that they had the sitcom cliché tape-down-the-middle-of-the-room setup going on. And they kind of hated each other, which didn’t alleviate any problems.

Where Patrick enjoyed sitting and jamming on his guitar or listening to music or even doing stuff for class, Gerard apparently just liked to sit and draw for hours and drink coffee all the time and never shower. Which was pretty fucking gross, if Patrick was being honest. And, on the rare days Gerard was out of the room for more than just class, his brother was always there, and Patrick was pretty sure the kid was like fifteen.

“I can’t believe you guys still have this fucking tape up, man,” Mikey commented.

“Courtesy of your brother,” Patrick said. “He’s weird, you know that?”

“I lived with him my whole life, dude. I know.”

“Speaking of your whole life,” Patrick turned to him. “How old are you anyway? Like fifteen? Are you even allowed to be here?”

“Eighteen. And who gives a shit? Your RA has never said anything about it.”

“Yeah, but Ray’s a chill guy. I don’t think he’d mention it even if you weren’t allowed.” Mikey just shrugged. “Don’t you have school?” Another shrug. Patrick decided not to ask anything else, which was probably a good thing considering Gerard chose that exact moment to walk in and act like Patrick was committing some sort of heinous crime by even standing in the same room as Mikey. He couldn’t imagine what would happen if Gerard found him having an actual conversation with another person. Wow. What an idea. 

Gerard dropped his shit on his side of the tape and grabbed Mikey by the shoulder,

“We have plans.” His voice and demeanor were so cold that Patrick was sure the temperature in the room dropped to zero right then, which wasn’t much of a difference since Gerard was an asshole who insisted on living in a frozen hell all the time.

“Uh,” Mikey pulled his shoulder from his brother’s grip. “No we don’t.”

“Well, we do now.”

“Gerard, the room is all yours,” Patrick interrupted. Gerard didn’t look pleased by the fact that Patrick had decided to speak. Next he would be mad that Patrick was breathing the same air as he was. Asshole. “I’ve got class.”

“Mikey, are you coming with me or not?”

“Coming with you where?” Mikey asked. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re on about.”

“Somewhere away from here.” Gerard spat every word and looked like he really couldn’t wait to be away from Patrick.

“Gerard, if you just don’t wanna be near Patrick, he just said he’s leaving.”

“I heard nothing. I thought that was the wind.”

“Jesus Christ, Gerard, I’m not going anywhere with you if you’re gonna keep being a bitch.”

“Mikey-,” Gerard started, but Mikey held up one hand and pushed his weird glasses up his nose with the other.

“Seriously. I’m gonna go hang out with Ray,” he said. He headed towards the door and turned back around to add an afterthought. “Chill.” The other two watched Mikey leave and then turned to face one another again.

“Okay. You were leaving?” Gerard said.

“Dude, what the fuck is your problem with me?”

“I don’t like you.” Gerard stated simply. Asshole. Patrick rolled his eyes,

“Fair enough; I don’t like you either. But next time Mikey walks in on us screaming at each other like he did last time, you know he’s gonna tell Ray. And I think he’s a little tired of constant complaints from both of us.”

“Well, if you would just,” Gerard stopped for a moment. “Stop living in this room, I wouldn’t have to complain to anyone.”

“Like I haven’t tried switching roommates.”

“Try harder.”

“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” Gerard shrugged. “Look, I’m just saying I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone.”

“Maybe if you’d stop being here all the time-,” Gerard began, but Patrick cut him off.

“Trust me, dude, I wish I was in a different room too.” He didn’t say anything else, but grabbed his torn up bookbag and walked out the door. He took one step forward and was nearly trampled to the ground by some guy running, carrying a psych book in his hands.

“Watch it, short stuff!” The guy yelled.

Patrick decided it wasn’t just Gerard. Everyone at this school was an asshole.


	3. Chapter 3

If you asked Andy Hurley, he was almost positive that whoever was in charge of assigning roommates at his school tried to put together the most opposite people that they could. He also knew the roommate drama of everyone else in his dorm. Not because he wanted to, really. He just overheard a lot.

He knew that Gerard Way and Patrick Stump, the guys in the room directly above him, pretty much hated each other. Andy figured the two probably had the cliché, tape-dividing-the-room setup going on. Andy also knew that William Beckett and Gabe Saporta pretty much hated each other, too. There were probably others as well, but Andy heard about those two pairs the most frequently. He tried not to focus on any of them that much, because, quite frankly, he had his own roommate issues to deal with.

That wasn’t to say he hated his roommate; Joe was a pretty okay guy. It was Joe’s habits that absolutely drove Andy up the wall. He was the laziest person Andy had ever met, he was drunk half the time, he left his shit everywhere, and Andy had never seen one person smoke so much weed.

If Andy had to pinpoint a definite factor of the tension between the two, it would be the weed. Which, really, Andy didn’t care if Joe smoked, so long as he kept it to himself and to his stuff. But even after telling him at least ten times that he was straightedge, Joe never failed to offer Andy some of it when he started smoking. 

Their conversations often consisted of things like “’want some weed, bro?’ ‘still straightedge.’ ‘beer?’ ‘straightedge.’ ‘want any of this food?’ ‘vegan. we’ve discussed this.’”. 

Andy honestly hadn’t minded the repetitive questions at first. But after the tenth time, it got pretty annoying. It also got pretty annoying that Joe never seemed to do anything. He sat and smoked weed and slept and came back wasted from parties and that was it. Andy didn’t think he’d ever seen the guy go to class. He didn’t actually really know anything about Joe at all. If he didn’t know better he’d think the guy was just loitering on campus all the time, but he thought he had heard Joe mention something about being an art major once. Though a major didn’t really matter much if you didn’t go to class.

Which, judging by the state of the room and Joe sleeping in his bed at 4 PM, he hadn’t. 

“Dude, get the fuck up,” Andy yelled, tossing a pillow towards Joe’s head. Or, rather, the massive jumble of curly hair around his head.

“Mmph?” Joe mumbled.

“Get up,” Andy said, tossing another pillow. Joe mumbled again before turning over and glaring at Andy.

“I was asleep, jerk.”

“Yeah, I heard you snoring halfway down the hall. It’s four in the afternoon. Have you been asleep all day?”

“What are you, my mom?” Joe asked. He stumbled out of his bed, rubbing a hand over his head. “Man, my head hurts so fucking bad what the fuck.”

“I’ve heard hangovers are a pain in the ass. Maybe if you didn’t drink so much-,”

“God, you literally sound like my mom. Chill out, bruh.” Joe started ‘making’ his bed, which, for him, was just pulling the comforter over the rumpled pile of sheet. “Alright, I’m gonna change clothes and head out. Wait. Did you say four?” 

“Yeah.”

“I missed class. Oh well.” Andy looked up at him just as he finished pulling on a different shirt.

“Oh, wow, I was starting to think you didn’t actually have any classes, considering you never go to them.”

“Bye, mom,” Joe remarked, walking out of the room. Andy shook his head. Joe didn’t really think of him as family, right? As a mom? That would be weird.

And, more importantly, Andy decided, why did he care?


	4. Chapter 4

Frank Iero realized as he stumbled through the hall that he was fucking wasted. He also realized that it was, like, four in the afternoon, assuming he was sober enough to read a clock. And, as he got further down the hall, he realized that he didn’t fucking care.

A lot of people would have been embarrassed about stumbling through their college dorm, wasted, at four in the afternoon. And, when he was hungover in bed the next morning, Frank probably would be. But right now he didn’t fucking care.

What he did care about was finding his room so he could get to his bathroom and throw up there instead of in the hall. Hopefully the three people he shared the bathroom with wouldn’t mind. 

And hopefully, he thought as he made his way past rooms that weren’t his, his roommate was actually there to let him in, because Frank was pretty sure he didn’t have his key on him. He got to the door – he was almost certain 422 was his room, though it might’ve been 423 or 424, he couldn’t remember – and knocked on it, waiting for Pete to open it. When it did open, he was pretty sure that it wasn’t Pete standing there, but he couldn’t see straight enough to tell. 

“Is Pete in there?”

“Who?”

“Pete. My roommate.”

“Why would your roommate be in my room?”

“Uh.”

“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” The guy standing there asked. Frank nodded. The other guy sighed and stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind him. “Alright, come on. What’s your name?” Frank mumbled his name and felt his arm being lifted and draped over the guy’s shoulder. “Which room is yours? What number?”

“Uh. 424. Maybe.”

“Great.” He led Frank two doors down and Frank nodded because he was sure this was his room. The other guy knocked and Frank let out a breath when Pete opened the door.

“Is he drunk?” Pete asked. 

“Yeah. He thought my room was his so I thought I should help him down here.” The guy moved Frank’s arm and Pete stepped out of the way so Frank could stumble in. Before Pete shut the door, Frank turned.

“Thanks, uh,” He stopped, not knowing the other person’s name.

“Gerard.”

“Thanks, Gerard.” Frank heard the door shut, walked to his bed, and promptly passed the fuck out. 

 

-

He woke up what he assumed was hours later, though it could have been days. He had no concept of time when he was hungover. All he could really remember was some guy – Gerald? Gerry? – helping him to his dorm. Gerard. That was it. 

Frank got up and steadied himself, getting his bearings. There was a glass of water by his bed, which he assumed Pete had given to him at some point. The guy wasn’t always a douche. There was also a note next to it that Frank could barely read thanks to Pete’s chicken scratch handwriting. 

“went(z) to class. left u some water but didn’t want to wake u up. u were fuckin wasted man”

Frank made a mental note to tell Pete he was a loser for making puns with his own last name. 

He made another to find someone from whatever party he had gone to and ask how much he had to drink. He was always pretty good at holding his alcohol thanks to attending Catholic school his entire life, but if Pete said he was wasted, it was bad. And he really couldn’t remember anything except the guy who helped him find his room. Gerard. That was it. 

He started to go to the bathroom and shower and be not disgusting when someone knocked at the door. It sounded really fucking loud, which was probably just Frank’s headache, but it still pissed him off when he went to answer it.

“What?” And he really didn’t mean it to sound so rude, especially when the person at the door looked so taken aback. And when he realized the person at the door was Gerard.

“Oh. Um. Sorry,” he stuttered. “Frank, right? I just, uh, I don’t know if you remember, but I helped you find your room last night. You thought my room was yours and, uh.”

“Yeah, I remember. Thanks, by the way. What’s up?”

“Oh, uh, you’re welcome. I just wanted to, um, to make sure you were okay? You seemed pretty drunk last night. Uh. Yeah. Sorry if this is a bad time.”

“It’s not. I’m okay, just a wicked hangover, y’know?”

“Yeah. Well, uh, not really. I don’t drink that much. Um. Ever.” Gerard sounded nervous, like he thought Frank would judge him for it.

“Cool, cool,” Frank nodded. He decided that he really wanted to talk to Gerard more, but not when he was hungover. “I don’t wanna, like, cut this short and be rude or anything but I am still pretty hungover.”

“Right!” Gerard nodded vigorously, his black hair bouncing in his face. Frank thought it was kind of cute. “Well, uh, I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks for checking up on me,” Frank said. “Maybe you can, uh, check up again? We can talk about it or something.” And Frank knew somewhere deep in his mind it was a shitty move for a phone number but, hell, he was hungover and impatient.

“Yeah! Yeah. Uh, I can come back later? We can talk about it. Or you can come to my room. Or something. Yeah. Um. Bye.” Gerard stuttered through his sentence and blushed a little, then turned on his heel and left. Frank thought it was really cute. He also thought that it would be smart to figure out a little bit more about this guy, and decided that Pete knew more about the dorm residents than anyone else, so he sent him a text.

[F: dude u know anything about the cute guy down the hall?]  
[P: i know a lot of things about a lot of ppl. gotta specify]  
[F: cute guy room 422]  
[P: u like him?]  
[F: yeah]  
[P: think he’s cute? interested in him at all?]  
[F: well yeah. he stopped by to check on me earlier. it was nice. gonna try and talk to him more but don’t know much. so i asked u]  
[P: so like. u like him. u would date him?]  
[F: yeah. u ok wentz?]  
[P: fine. describe him]  
[F: he had a nice smile. super blushy. longish hair. you know who i’m talking about?]  
[P: yeah. gotta go. later iero]

If Frank hadn’t been hungover he might’ve texted back and asked Pete what was up, but he left it at that. He’d ask whenever Pete got back to the room from class. It would also be another chance to ask about Gerard. Who, he’d decided, he was going to go talk to later after he showered and maybe brushed his hair and stopped feeling like he was going to throw up.


	5. Chapter 5

Gerard was on his bed, sketching, trying to ignore his roommate when Patrick came up to him and started complaining about the room again.

“Dude, you own like three pieces of clothes. Why can’t you keep them off the fucking floor?”

“It’s my side of the room, dick.”

“Okay, but it can’t be that hard to keep your clothes off. Of. The floor.” Patrick clearly annunciated the last bit of his sentence.

“Y’know, you’re always nagging me. You sound like my fucking mom.”

“Dude, I just want the room to be clean.”

“Clean it yourself, asshole.”

“It’s your shit!”

“Yeah, but it’s your problem!” Gerard raised his voice slightly, and Patrick did the same with his response.

“HOW IS THIS MY PROBLEM? IT’S YOUR SHIT!”

“WHY ARE YOU STILL IN HERE?”

“BECAUSE IT’S MY ROOM!” Gerard sighed,

“You are literally the worst roommate I didn’t ask for.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

“Are you done nagging me now?” Gerard asked. As he did, someone knocked at their door and he moved to answer it, turning to stare down Patrick while he walked.

“If you’d pick up your fucking laundry.”

“YOU CAN CRAM IT WITH WALNUTS, STUMP,” Gerard yelled as he opened the door, still staring the other way.

“You’re into some weird shit, man.” He turned to see Frank standing there, black hair stuck to his forehead and hands in his jean pockets and suddenly Gerard’s face felt very red.

“Oh, uh,” he stammered over words for a moment, looking right at Frank. “I was just, um, screaming at my roommate. He’s an asshole. You can, uh, come in if you want.” He stepped aside and Frank nodded his thanks and walked past him a little. Gerard took the moment that he was shutting the door to take a few deep breaths and try and collect himself. When he turned back, Patrick was stepping up to Frank.

“I’m Patrick, the aforementioned asshole roommate, though I disagree.” Frank nodded again,

“Uh, I’m Frank. Sorry to barge in like this if it’s a bad time.”

“Not really, we were just screaming at each other.”

“Do you, uh, do that a lot?”

“Yes,” Gerard spoke up. “Because Stump is an asshole. Anyway, what’s up?” Gerard sat on the edge of his bed and motioned for Frank to sit too.

“We talked about meeting up earlier, so I thought I’d stop by. Sorry if this is rude or anything.”

“Oh, uh, no!” Gerard said, moving his hands as he spoke. “No. Not at all.”

“Y’know,” Frank said. “You were really sweet to come and check up on me like that.” Gerard could actually feel himself blushing – a lot – and glanced down to avoid any major embarrassment because Frank was just being nice.

“Gerard, you’re blushing.” Patrick said from his side of the room. 

“Shut the fuck up, Stump.” Gerard glanced over at Frank, who was smiling at him.

“You’re blushiiiiiing,” Patrick said in a sing-song voice. 

“Can it, dick.”

“Blushiiiiiing,” he repeated.

“GO FUCK A CACTUS BECAUSE YOU’RE A FUCKING PRICK.” Gerard yelled. Patrick practically exploded with laughter and Gerard heard Frank giggle a little from beside him. Patrick kept laughing as he waved the two of them goodbye and left the room just as Mikey walked in.

“Gerard,” Mikey started. “You’re blushing.”

“SHUT IT.”

“You really need to chill out,” Mikey said, walking over. He glanced at Frank and then at Gerard, grinning. “Hm. Nice job, Gerard. I’m gonna go hang out with Ray.”

“Ray the RA?” Frank asked. Mikey nodded.

“When are you gonna tell him that you’re crushing on him?” Gerard questioned. Mikey sighed as he opened the door to leave.

“Never. Because I’m not.”

“Okay, Mikey, whatever you say.”

“Gerard, what do you know? You don’t even wash your clothes.”

He left and Gerard shook his head, turning to Frank.

“I’m really sorry about, like, all of that.” Frank laughed a little.

“It’s not a big deal. I’ve actually gotta head back, but maybe we can go out for coffee or something sometime? Give me your number and I’ll text you about it.”

Gerard nodded and didn’t make a big effort to hide his furiously red cheeks.


	6. Chapter 6

“So, say you and your roommate liked the same person,” Pete said, moving his coffee cup a little bit. “What would you do?”

“Wentz, why are you asking me? In what fucking universe would Beckett and I like the same person?” Gabe retorted.

“Just, hypothetically. What would you do?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Gabe said. “Try to go out with the girl first, I guess. What girl do you and Iero have the hots for?”

“Uh, well,” Pete stuttered. “It might not exactly be a girl.”

“Okay. What guy do you and Iero have the hots for?”

“Patrick Stump.”

“Oh, man, you’ve gotta be fucking joking. Sideburns Patrick Stump?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same Iero? Doesn’t seem like he’d be into Stump like that.”

“He told me.”

“Okay, well, I haven’t had this problem because I’m not gay and Beckett and I definitely aren’t into the same girls, but just try and get with Stump first.” Pete nodded, and then thought for a moment before speaking again.

“I don’t think you and Beckett will have that problem.”

“Why not?”

“I’m pretty sure Beckett is into you,” Pete said. “And I’m pretty sure you’re into Beckett.”

At that, Gabe spit his coffee out all over the table. “What?” 

“Just a conclusion I’ve come to through some, uh, casual observations.” Pete smirked, twirling his cup around. 

“And what casual observations would those be?”

“Casual observation number one is that you talk about Beckett a lot. Like, way more than the average college student talks about their roommate."

“Yeah, well, he’s an asshole,” Gabe said quickly. Pete ignored him.

“Casual observation number two is Beckett’s reaction to hearing that you talk about him a lot. He got, like, almost excited.”

“You told him that I talk about him a lot?”

“May have mentioned it.”

“What the fuck? Dude, you can’t just do that! He’ll think I’m into him or something.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I’m not into dudes!” Gabe yelled, messing with his hoodie as he spoke. “Bros before hoes. Or other bros. Or something.”

“Okay, that doesn’t actually fit this situation. At all. Dude, Gabe, it’s fine if you’re into Beckett. Or dudes in general. Whatever.”

“But I’m not,” Gabe insisted. “At least, I don’t think I am.” Pete sighed, because he really didn’t want to have a heart to heart in the campus coffee shop, but looked over at Gabe.

“I might not be the best person to talk to about it, honestly, since I just went with it when I figured out I was into guys. And this isn’t the kind of thing you can go yell at Beckett about, which, I assume, is what you usually do.” Gabe shook his head,

“You aren’t helping.”

“Sorry. You might be able to talk to Ray.”

“Ray the RA?”

“Yeah. If there’s, like, somewhere on campus you can go to talk to someone about this, he’ll be able to tell you.” Gabe nodded. “Alright, I’m gonna go. Good luck, Saporta.”


	7. Chapter 7

Ray was in the middle of making out with Mikey when they were interrupted by someone knocking on his door very loudly. He pulled away from Mikey and huffed as he stood.

“I swear to God, I’m so close to putting up a damn sign up sheet so at least I know when they’re going to come complain about their roommates.”

“How do you know that’s what it is?” Mikey asked, sitting up and straightening out his shirt.

“That’s always what it is. And it’s usually your brother complaining. Does he hate Patrick that much?”

“They have tape dividing their room in half.”

“Figures,” Ray muttered, opening the door. Gabe Saporta stood in front of him, so Ray prepared himself for another spiel about how annoying William Beckett was. Ray didn’t necessarily agree – he actually thought Gabe was more annoying than William was – but the kid was pretentious as hell, as per usual with lit majors. 

“Sorry if this is a bad time.”

“It’s chill,” Ray said, shooting Mikey a look when he made a noise of protest. No one was technically supposed to know they were dating. “What’s up, Saporta?”

“Uh,” Gabe paused for a moment. “It’s not about Beckett this time. Well, it kind of is, but I’m not here to complain.”

“Okay.”

“I was wondering if you knew if there was, like, some place that I could go to talk to someone? Like, if I thought I might be gay or something. I don’t know.” Ray was caught off guard for a minute, but nodded.  
“Oh, uh, yeah. You know Jack Barakat and Alex Gaskarth?”

“The business majors? They’re gay, right?”

“Right. Well, that frat house they head isn’t actually a frat house. It’s an LGBTQ safe space. Y’know, for anyone who needs to talk about their sexuality, or for people who are being bullied, or people aren’t out but want or need to talk to someone.”

“Seriously?” Gabe had a look of shock on his face. Ray just nodded.

“Yeah. They’ve been running it since their freshman year or something like that. It’s where I went my freshman year.”

“You’re gay?” Gabe looked embarrassed as soon as he asked. “That was kind of rude, sorry.”

“No worries, man. And yeah, I am.”

“So you think they’ll be able to help me?”

“Jack and Alex really have a lot of knowledge about all of it. If you talk to one of them they can definitely help you figure things out.”

“Okay,” Gabe said, sounding very nervous.

“You’ll be fine. If it helps, I can call one of them. Let them know what day and time you’re gonna go?”

“Yeah. Yeah that would be cool. I guess I’ll go next Friday? Around eight or something. Thanks, Ray.”

“No problem.” He followed Gabe to the door and nodded at him as he left, then turned to face Mikey.

“Always complaining about roommates, huh?”

“Oh, hush,” Ray said, smirking. “I was expecting him to complain about Beckett, not be gay for Beckett.”

“Well, you aren’t very good at knowing what’s gonna happen, then. Were you expecting me to like you?”

“Of course. I figured you would like my endless wit and charm. And my ‘fro.”

“Shut the hell up,” Mikey grinned, pulling Ray back down to the tiny couch and picking up where they had left off before the interruption.


	8. Chapter 8

Andy had vowed to himself once that he would live his life trying not to bother and annoy people unless it was absolutely necessary. And, when he was living with Joe, it was.

Which is how he had ended up outside of the RA’s room four times in one week when Joe was being particularly awful to deal with. Lucky for Andy, Ray was a very patient person.

“What’s he doing now?” Ray asked, opening the door wider for Andy to come in.

“Being awful.” Ray rolled his eyes and Andy shrugged. “Nothing in particular, but the entire room smells like weed and he keeps offering it to me and I can’t sit in there anymore.”

“He’s not even supposed to smoke on campus.”

“So I’ve told him.”

“Hm.”

“Ray?” Andy asked suddenly. He’d told himself he wasn’t going to mention to anyone what Joe had said to him, but he also thought he kind of needed to. 

“Yeah?”

“If I had, say, a friend, who needed to talk to someone about their sexuality, would you know of anywhere on campus I could tell them to go to?”

“This about you or Joe?”

“Neither. Uh. Neither.”

“If it’s about Joe then, first of all, that’s not up to you to tell people. And also he’s already talked to me.”

“He said it earlier when he was really, really high and also said-,” Andy stopped and stared at Ray. “What?”

“Yeah, he came in earlier this week and asked me. Like, almost the exact same way you just did.”

“Great. That’s great. Well, uh, I’m gonna go.”

“Hang on. Were you asking for you or for Joe?”

“Uh. Both.”

“Thought so,” Ray said, launching into his spiel about the safe house. Andy nodded when he was done.

“Okay. Cool. Um, I’ll go next Friday, then.”

“I think it’ll help you a lot.” Andy headed to leave, but turned at the door.

“Did Joe say anything to you? About, I dunno, liking someone? Or something?”

“Why?”

“When he was really high earlier he muttered something about liking someone.”

“Who?”

“Uh,” Andy began, but stopped himself. “I don’t know exactly.”

“I don’t think it’s actually my place to tell you who he mentioned to me, but he did mention liking someone.” Andy nodded again and said another thanks to Ray before leaving. He knew he needed to tell someone that he liked Joe, but he couldn’t tell Ray since he knew who Joe liked and that person might not even be Andy. He just hoped he could talk to Jack or Alex about it, and get through the days before next Friday without doing anything too stupid.


	9. Chapter 9

Brendon Urie hated Dallon Weekes.

And, in the usual nature of irony and the universe, Dallon was his roommate.

He hated that Dallon was the typical annoying pre-law student, and he hated that Dallon always complained about Brendon’s music, and he hated that the guy was so fucking tall and always seemed to have a different girlfriend.

The last two reasons were things Brendon was typically mad about no matter who else was involved in the situation, but still. 

Luckily, Dallon was only in their room about five percent of the time, and he was usually asleep when he was there. That was the only time Brendon could tolerate him. 

Brendon also had a really bad habit of complaining about Dallon. A lot.

Which is exactly what he was doing as he sat on the floor of Spencer Smith and Jon Walker’s room after his last class of the day.

“Dude,” Spencer said. “Can’t you complain quietly? In your room? To yourself?”

“No.”

“Why not? You’ve been in here every day this week.”

“Because Dallon has had a different girl in our room every day this week. It’s really annoying and I need to complain to someone.”

“Okay, well, if you don’t stop complaining in here, Jon is gonna start. And he’s fucking annoying anyway, I don’t want to deal with him being annoying and mad.”

“He’s always mad.”

“Around you, yeah. No offense, dude, but you’re really annoying sometimes.”

“I know that,” Brendon said, leaning back against Spencer’s bed. “But I have to annoy someone about this.”

“Can’t you go annoy Pete?”

“Not right now. If I try he’ll just talk to me about how Frank is a traitor for liking Patrick or something.”

“Speaking of that, did Frank ever actually say Patrick?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Doesn’t Patrick’s roommate also have long hair? Similar enough that they’d fit the same vague description?”

“I guess. Are you saying Frank likes Patrick’s roommate, not Patrick?”

“Yeah. Plus I’ve seen them go dorm to dorm, like, almost every day this week. They’re into each other.”

“I should tell Pete that. I’m not going to, because it’s fun to see him like this, but I should.”

“You’re an ass, dude,” Spencer said. Then he sighed and turned to Brendon. “I’m serious, though. Go complain to someone else.”

“Who?”

“If it’s general roommate complaints you can go to Ray.”

“Ray the RA?” Spencer nodded. “Everyone complains to him. There’s so many fucking roommate problems in this building I’m surprised he doesn’t make people schedule times to complain.”

“He does. He put a sign up sheet on his door yesterday so everyone stops bothering him and he knows who to expect complaints about.”

“Think it’ll help?”

“Nope.”


	10. Chapter 10

“This sign up sheet hasn’t helped at all,” Ray sighed, waving the paper around. Mikey grinned at him. “Look at this! It’s completely full and people are literally crossing out each other’s names. Patrick Stump signed up for tomorrow afternoon and someone drew a dick next to his name.”

“That was definitely Gerard.”

“Okay, who crossed it out and put a heart next to his name?”

“Pete Wentz, probably.”

“Seriously?” Mikey nodded. “How did I become the RA of the gayest and most annoying dorm on campus?” 

“Gayest?”

“All of them. All the ones who complain are also all the ones I’ve told about the house this week. Ten of them, I think. Maybe more.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mikey said. “Guess you’re just very lucky.”

“Guess so,” Ray mumbled. “I also have no other ideas for stopping all this complaining.”

“What if you tried, like, teamwork days or something?”

“Teamwork days?”

“Yeah, like set up activities they have to do with their roommate. Get them to work together and hopefully sort out differences.”

“That’s not a bad idea. What’s in it for you?”

“Gerard will stop calling me at three in the morning to yell about Patrick. Also I want to see him embarrass himself.”

“Fair enough. But since it was your idea, you have to help me set it all up.”

“Ugh. Fine,” Mikey groaned, leaning into Ray. “Out of, y’know, general curiosity, are you also trying to play matchmaker with any of these guys?”

“Absolutely.”

“Who?”

“Gabe and William mainly. Also Joe and Andy, and Spencer and Jon.”

“Frank and Gerard?”

“They’re doing fine, they don’t need any help.”

“Pete and Patrick?”

“Patrick hasn’t told me anything specifically. I did refer him to the house, though, and Gerard told me he definitely likes someone.”

“Who’s left, then? Brendon and Dallon?”

“Oh, God, no. That would be a train wreck.”

“You’ve got a point,” Mikey said. “You might be good at this matchmaker thing, Toro.” Mikey leaned up and kissed him and Ray hm’ed in satisfaction before breaking the kiss, prompting a displeased noise from Mikey.

“So, teamwork days? Should we get started?”

“Ugh, not right now. I was enjoying that,” Mikey said, pulling Ray back over.

They didn’t start working on the teamwork days for a while.


	11. Chapter 11

“Toro, why the fuck did you ask us all to come here?” Gabe demanded as he walked into the lounge. “I don’t want to be in the same room as most of these people.”

“That’s your own problem, Saporta.” Ray said. He looked around, making sure everyone was there, before starting again. “As all of you probably know, I’ve been getting a lot of complaints about roommates. Don’t say anything, Saporta, I’m not done. It’s gotten to the point that it’s honestly pretty fucking annoying.”

“So, what, we can’t complain to you anymore? Lame,” Frank said from his spot next to Gerard.

“I actually can’t stop you from doing that because one of my jobs as RA is listening to all of your endless complaints.” 

“We don’t complain that much,” Jon protested.

“Yeah, you do.” Ray said. “And my sign up sheet didn’t work because you all just kept crossing each other off and drawing crude images next to people’s names.” He glared at Gerard, who shrugged,

“Patrick is a dick, I drew something to represent him.”

“Patrick isn’t a dick,” Pete piped up. Ray saw Patrick shoot him a small smile of thanks.

“He’s really not that bad,” Frank added.

“Shut it, Iero.” Pete snapped.

“Don’t tell him to shut it!” Gerard yelled out.

“He’s my roommate, I’ll do whatever I want.”

“Yeah, well he’s my,” A pause. “Something. But only I can tell him to shut it.”

“How about you all shut it? As I was saying, I can’t make you stop complaining to me. However, I can try and get you all to stop hating each other.” William laughed.

“That’s unlikely.”

“I know. But, I was talking to Mikey about it, and he gave me a good idea. A teamwork day!” Everything was so incredibly silent for once that Ray thought it was actually scary.

Then came the uproar.

“Teamwork day?” 

“You have got to be fucking joking!”

“Can you actually make us do this?”

“Everybody shut up!” Mikey yelled.

“Thanks,” Ray grinned at him. When he turned back Gerard was glaring, but Ray brushed it off. “Yes, a teamwork day. No, I am not fucking joking. And yes, I can actually make you do this. I asked the dean, and he okayed it.” There was a collective groan. “Essentially, I’ve looked at all of your schedules and picked a time that none of you have class. Wednesday at noon, we have teamwork day. All of you have to be there.”

“Dude, you’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.” Frank said.

“Nope. You guys are going to learn to put aside your differences and hopefully, when it’s done, you’ll stop complaining all the time.

“Unlikely,” William said again.

“What if we don’t want to do this?” Brendon asked.

“Too bad.”

“Toro, you can’t make us do this. It’s ridiculous,” Spencer insisted.

“I know. So are all of you. I’m just hoping that something good will come out of this.” Ray listened to collective groans and complaints as all of them left the lounge, then turned to Mikey. 

“They’re gonna hate you.”

“Yeah, I know. Hopefully not for long.”

“Don’t count on that,” Mikey said. “I don’t know about anyone else, but Gerard is definitely going to hate you. Especially if he finds out we’re dating on top of the teamwork day.”

“How would he find out?”

“You smiled at me and he had a death glare. He’s catching onto something.” Ray was going to counter argue, but it was kind of difficult when Mikey’s mouth was on his. He liked kissing more than counter arguing, anyway.


	12. Chapter 12

The day after Ray had forced them all to come to the lounge and agree to teamwork days, William decided they all needed to talk about it. Just without Ray. 

And that’s how the same eleven guys (no one could find Joe) ended up in that same lounge on a Friday afternoon when any one of them could’ve been doing literally anything else. 

“Alright, Beckett, why the fuck did you ask us to come here?” Gabe demanded. “I said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t like being in the same room as most of these people.” He paused for a minute, then added, “Especially not you.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s true, Saporta,” Pete snorted.

“Fuck off, Wentz.” 

“Can any of you ever shut the fuck up?” Spencer asked from the back. “Seriously, William, what do you want?” William shook his hair out of his face before speaking.

“Okay, we all think Toro’s teamwork days are fucking ridiculous, right?” There was a collective noise of agreement. “Unfortunately, we can’t get out of it easily. I went to the dean and everything Toro said checks out.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Jon asked. “We already know he’s torturing us- why are you telling us again?”

“There’s not an easy way out of it,” William said. “Doesn’t mean there’s not a way out of it.”

“Okay, genius Beckett, how the fuck do we get out of it? Can we get to that already?”

“Can you shut the fuck up, Gabe?” William asked. He realized a second too late that he should’ve gone with Saporta, not Gabe, but he couldn’t correct himself without seeming weird. “I was getting to that.”

“Can you get to it faster?” Patrick. “Not trying to be rude, but I have class in twenty minutes.”

“Yeah, hurry up, Beckett,” Pete. William decided that Pete could not be more obvious about his crush on Patrick if he tried.

“Ugh, fine,” William groaned. “The way I see it, we’ve got two options. One, we can all try to not want to kill each other for the next few days and see if Toro cancels the teamwork thing.”

“Unlikely,” Gerard piped up. “I always want to kill Patrick.”

“Rude,” Patrick muttered.

“And Joe can’t go that long without smoking, so I can’t go that long without getting pissed at him,” Andy spoke from the back. William sighed.

“Option two is that we deal with the fucking teamwork day.”

“That’s not getting out of it,” Frank complained. 

“What, don’t wanna be around me more than you have to, Iero?” Pete questioned.

“Not really.” 

“You’re a dick.”

“You’re all dicks,” Jon sighed.

“I’ve sucked a dick before,” Joe said suddenly from somewhere under the couch. Dallon screamed and jumped from where he had been sitting.

“Jesus Christ, how long have you been under there?” Gabe yelled.

“Since last night.” Joe didn’t say anything else and Dallon backed away from the couch and stood behind a chair instead of sitting back down.

“Dude,” Jon said. “You’re fucking weird.”

“Can you go five seconds without being rude to someone?” Spencer asked him.

“Doubt it,” Brendon spoke up. “He’s just like Dallon.”

“Hey!” 

Everyone was kind of yelling at everyone else and William could only pick out vague pieces of what was being said. “Trust me, Iero, I don’t wanna be around you either” “This is why I’m never in the room” “Yeah, you’re always hanging out with art boy” “Leave Gerard out of this, Wentz” was coming from one side, and “I’m not rude” “You’re literally such an asshole all the time, dude” “Brendon, chill” “Will all of you shut the fuck up” from another. Andy was yelling something in the general direction of the couch, and William was pretty sure Patrick and Gerard were about to actually kill each other. He sighed, trying to figure out how to get all their attention when someone’s voice overpowered all the yelling in the room.  
“EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP.” 

Gabe. 

He was standing at his table, staring them all down with one annoyed look. William figured he was trying to be threatening or something, and it was kind of working, which was not easily achieved by someone who only wore purple hoodies and stupid sunglasses. Gabe nodded at William to keep talking, and William shook his head again.

“Thank you,” he said sharply. Everyone was seated, but half of them looked like they were ready to start screaming again. “Before there’s another screaming match, I’m gonna finish what I was saying. Our only other option is suffering through next Wednesday.”

“Yeah, key word there is suffering,” Patrick said.

“I’m always suffering.” 

“Jesus Christ, Jon, chill out.”

“See?” Spencer said. “This is the kind of shit I was talking about when I told Ray my roommate was fucking weird.”

“Anyway,” William raised his voice before everyone could start yelling again. “I know none of us want to participate, but I figure if we can get through it without too much complaining, Ray will get off our backs.”

“And then what? We all go right back to hating each other and complaining so much that Ray makes us do another?” 

“Or Ray realizes that some of us,” Patrick started, glaring at Gerard. “Cannot be civil people and wouldn’t stop complaining if our lives depended on it.”

“You’re one to talk about civil, considering you spend most of your time hitting things to make noise.”

“Drumming?”

“No, drumming implies that it’s actual music.”

A lot happened in the few seconds that followed. Patrick stood up and looked like he was ready to deck Gerard straight in the face, Gerard remained sitting and smirked at his own comeback, Joe muttered “holy shit”, and someone, probably Brendon, said something about it being “fuckin’ savage”. 

“Gee,” Frank leaned over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “That was, like, almost unnecessarily rude.”

“Almost?” Pete asked. “That was way beyond ‘almost unnecessarily rude’.”

“Yeah,” Brendon agreed. “It was fuckin’ savage.” He leaned over to the couch and Joe stuck his hand out for a high five.

“No, dude, it was mean.”

“Pete, it’s fine,” Patrick assured him, pulling him back down to his seat.

“Can all of you stop talking before someone gets punched in the face?” Gabe asked, speaking again for the first time since telling them all to shut the fuck up. “I really don’t want to be here anymore, so can we please just fucking finish already?” William glanced at him, mildly disappointed that Gabe’s opinion had changed from what it had seemed to be earlier. 

“Sure,” he said. Gabe looked like he was going to say something else, but William didn’t stop. “These are the only two ideas I’ve got.”

“Yeah, well they’re both shitty.”

A few variations of “Jon, shut the fuck up” were said, and William looked on as Jon crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat. 

“I’m just saying what all of you are thinking.”

William looked down quickly and felt his eyes start to fill with tears and fuck, he had to get out of there, he had to, he had to because he was not going to let all of these people see him cry. He mumbled something very quietly, making sure his gaze didn’t leave the floor.

“Huh?” Gabe asked. William glanced at him, which was a fucking mistake because he knew that Gabe saw his eyes, red and wet. “William?”

“I’m trying,” he managed to get out. He spoke slowly so that his voice wouldn’t crack, so that no one but Gabe would know he was about to cry. “I’m trying to help. None of us want to do this and I’m just trying to help, Walker. You don’t have to be such a fucking asshole. We all seem to hate each other and maybe I can’t ever change that, but I’m trying.” He wanted to shoot Jon a dirty look before he left, but all thoughts left his head as he stormed out of the lounge. Behind him he heard Gabe’s vague shout of “good job, asshole” and a tiny chorus of them yelling at Jon. He was halfway back to his room when someone grabbed his shoulder from behind.

“Fuck off,” he said, shaking the hand away.

“William, c’mon.” It was Gabe. William turned around and looked at him.

“What the fuck do you want, Saporta?” Gabe said nothing, just walked to the wall and sat down, motioning for William to do the same. He did.

“Don’t listen to him. Jon’s just an asshole, we all know that.”

“I just want them to understand that I’m trying.”

“Well, who cares what they think? You know you’re trying. I know you’re trying.”

“Why do you care? Don’t you hate me or something?” 

“I did.”

“Did?”

“Yeah. And then my emotions decided they wanted to fuck with me and make me think half of it was me covering up for liking you.”

“Was it?” William looked over at him as he was wiping more tears off of his face.

“I don’t know,” Gabe admitted. “That makes me sound like an ass, but I don’t. I’m figuring it out.”

William couldn’t tell if that meant Gabe liked him as a friend or something else, and he couldn’t tell if that possibility made him want to scream or rejoice. He didn’t say anything for a moment, just nodded.

“Yeah. Me too.”

He didn’t mention what he was thinking about. He also didn’t mention anything to Gabe the next time he saw Jon and the bastard had a split lip and was muttering something about “Gabe fucking Saporta, man”.


	13. Chapter 13

Ray would be lying if he said that he expected everyone to show up that Wednesday. He knew all of them were less than thrilled about the teamwork day – hell, so was he – and there were a few of them he definitely didn’t expect to see. 

So, when he showed up to the spot they’d designated for the whole thing and saw twelve people – thirteen counting Mikey, who had come for support and to make fun of Gerard – waiting for him, he could have nearly cried with joy. Maybe this was actually going to work.

“You can thank me later,” Mikey said, making his way over. “Because I am responsible for at least two of these people being here.” Ray let out a loud laugh,

“Thanks, Mikeyway.” He pulled him in to a sort of hug, and honestly really wanted to kiss him, but Gerard was right there, so he decided against it. Mikey stepped back and Ray grabbed the megaphone off the table he had asked Mikey to set up earlier.

“Oh, hell no,” Brendon said. “I’m not gonna sit here and listen to you yell at us through a megaphone.”

“Technically,” Ray argued. “You aren’t gonna sit here at all. Teamwork day means activities, remember?”

“Yeah, you never told us what those activities actually are.” Gerard reminded him. Ray went to talk and all but burst out laughing when he saw Gerard there- he was in shorts that were awkwardly short and probably making everyone a little uncomfortable, squinting so hard that Ray was sure he couldn’t see, and his greasy black hair was doing something, but Ray wasn’t sure what exactly. When he did go to talk, Mikey held up a hand.

“Hey, Gee? You look like an idiot.” Gerard scowled and Ray shook his head before actually saying anything.

“Right, so there’s gonna be three ‘activities’.”

“Three?” Frank deadpanned. “You drag us out here at noon on your teamwork day for three fuckin’ things?”

Ray rolled his eyes and didn’t respond.

“Gerard, tell your boyfriend to cram it,” Mikey said.

“He’s- he’s not my, he’s not,” Gerard stammered, blushing furiously. 

“Anyway,” Ray started again. “Yes, only three things. But by the end of today you guys might know how to work together and maybe, just maybe, you won’t hate each other.”

“Unlikely,” a few people said at the same time. Ray took into account that none of those people were William or Gabe, so he had hope for at least one possible friendship to come out of the day.

“Despite your constant negativity, I have a little bit of hope. Who’s ready?” Ray said this with a tad too much enthusiasm, and a total of zero people responded. “None of you are any fun. First activity- an egg toss!” No enthusiasm, just a collective groan and a remark of “what are we, nine years old?” from Frank. 

“C’mon you bunch of babies,” Mikey said, leading the group and telling them where to stand.

“Can I just throw the egg at my partner?” Gerard asked.

Ray had a feeling he was in for a very long day.


	14. Chapter 14

Mikey was having fun.

A lot of things factored into that, namely getting to be around Ray all day, but other things like getting to yell at people and watching Gerard act like an idiot.

He was having a lot of fun, and the activities hadn’t officially started yet. 

He was standing at one end of the line of teams as Ray stood at the other end and told them what the goal of the egg toss was. When he was done, Mikey handed one person from each team an egg and waited. Really, he knew that chaos would ensue the minute Ray said “go”, but it was whatever.

“Go!”

Mikey was right, just like he knew he would be. So many things happened at once that he honestly had trouble keeping up. Brendon immediately refused to throw the egg because he didn’t want to “let Dallon win”, and even after someone yelled that they were “trying to win together”, he still wouldn’t do it. Jon and Spencer, the team closest to Mikey, were participating, though it seemed it was with much reluctance and annoyance.

“You’re literally going so slow,” Spencer complained. “Throw the damn egg.”

“I’m only doing this because I, too, know what it’s like to feel fragile.”

“Jon, shut the fuck up and throw the damn egg.”

A few teams down, Joe and Andy were also moving very slowly, but they weren’t complaining. Gabe and William were moving at the pace of normal people, and, to Mikey’s surprise, actually seemed to be working well together.

It wasn’t ideal, there was still complaining, but nothing too bad.

Wrong.

“Are you gonna throw the egg or not?” Patrick asked, staring at Gerard. He didn’t move. Next to them, Frank was throwing the egg up and down in his hand. Pete asked the exact same question Patrick had, and Frank tossed the egg.

Directly at Pete’s head. 

Everyone was still for a minute, and Gerard used that time to walk over to Patrick, take off his hat, slam the egg on his head, and put the hat back on Patrick’s head. Patrick stood still for a moment, and then began chasing Gerard, egg dripping out of his hat.

“I’m gonna kill you, Way!” 

“This isn’t teamwork, guys!” Ray yelled, watching as Patrick chased Gerard around.

“No, but I’m having more fun now than I’ve had all year!” Gerard yelled back. He stumbled slightly and Patrick barreled into him, tackling him.

Mikey heard both Pete and Frank mumble something about wishing that was them and shook his head in disgust, walking over to Ray.

“It’s going well. They’re having fun.”

“They threw eggs at each other, Mikey.”

“But they’re having fun.”

Ray eventually managed to get Patrick and Gerard off of each other, and, as he did, someone called out a cheer of “we won!” and Mikey turned to see that Gabe and William were the only people who still had an egg. Spencer had slammed his on the ground when Jon wouldn’t stop mentioning “the fragility of it all”, and Joe had apparently smashed the egg on his own head because “everyone else did it”. 

“Congratulations,” Ray said. “Let’s take a break.”

 

-

 

Twenty minutes later, they were all gathered where they had been sitting before, and everyone had been cleaned of any egg that had gotten on them. Everyone except Joe, who couldn’t get all the egg out of his hair and had just accepted it and tied it into a bun. Ray and Mikey stood off to the side, talking in hushed voices.

“That was just an egg toss, Mikey. An egg toss. There’s a blindfolded obstacle course. One of them is going to die.”

“They’ll be having fun.”

“One of them is going to die, Mikey.”

“But they’ll be having fun!”

“Why are you so keen on continuing if one of them is, in fact, very likely to die?” Mikey shrugged.

“If Gerard dies I get his comic books.”

“Fair enough.” The two walked back to where everyone else was sitting, in absolute silence, watching Dallon bend over and look awkwardly under the plastic chairs that were sitting around.

“Uh, Dallon?” Spencer said. “What are you doing?”

“Checking for Joe.”

“Dude,” Andy interjected, pointing at Joe. “He’s right here.”

“Can’t be too careful.”

Mikey saw Ray shake his head, rub a hand over his face, before he spoke again.

“Alright, well, the egg toss was an absolute disaster.” There was a noise of agreement among everyone. “Luckily, we’ve got two more activities.”

“You don’t sound excited.”

“I’m not. Next up is the three legged race.” Everyone followed Ray and Mikey to where they had set up the race – it was short, to avoid anything incredibly disastrous happening – and waited to be told what to do next. Ray got them set up and finished tying legs together (he did it to avoid anyone fucking with anything), then stood at the finish line with Mikey. 

“Please go ahead and get any complaints out now, before we start.”

“He’s like, five inches shorter than me!” Gerard protested. “This is unfair and a disadvantage.” 

“Yeah, I can’t do anything about that. Anyone else?”

“Yeah,” Brendon said. “I’m tied up to Dallon.”

Ray ignored him and hit the siren button on the megaphone, signaling for them to start.

Frank and Pete kept pushing each other, both of them trying to lead. Andy was all but dragging Joe, who probably didn’t really even know what he was supposed to be doing. Mikey couldn’t tell if Jon was crying or just talking about “fragility” again, but Spencer had his arms crossed and hip jutted out. Patrick and Gerard were, surprisingly, in second place, only behind Gabe and William. That changed when Gerard knocked both himself and Patrick over, landing on top of Patrick.

“Get off of me, asshole!” Patrick yelled out.

“Oh no,” Gerard said. He was sprawled entirely on top of Patrick. “It looks like I can’t get up. Y’know, because our fucking legs are tied together. I guess we’ll just die here.”

“Get off of me,” Patrick said again. Gerard didn’t move. After a minute of silence, Gerard yelled out in pain.

“He bit me! That fucking hurt, dick.”

Mikey stared Gerard down for a moment as he and Patrick attempted to stand back up, and then glanced over at Brendon and Dallon just in time to see Brendon fall to the ground, taking Dallon down with him.

“FUCK!” Brendon exclaimed, frantically untying his leg from Dallon’s. Everyone else had stopped, silent, watching what was happening. “I think I twisted my ankle.”

“Yeah, you did that on purpose.” Ray said. “And you’re a jackass. Sit in one of the chairs, I’ll go get you some ice. Mikey, please make sure none of them die.”

“No promises,” Mikey said, going to sit on the table next to Brendon’s chair. When Ray got back everyone was still alive and Gabe and William had won, which Mikey had expected. 

“It’s fucking hot and I’m fucking hungry,” Pete complained. “Can we take a break for lunch or something?”

“Sure,” Ray said. “You guys will need all your energy to not die in the last activity.”

And so the group all sat in a big fucking circle on the grass and Ray handed them sandwiches that he had conveniently brought with him and Mikey thought it was honest to God one of the most cliché-teen-movie things he had ever seen in his life, but he didn’t complain. He was still having fun. 

Mikey didn’t talk for a while, just sat and watched everyone else. He saw Gabe and William sitting closer together than they ever had, and Joe practically lying on top of Andy, who didn’t seem to mind. Brendon, still in the plastic chair, had his foot on Dallon’s lap, and, surprisingly, neither of them were yelling. Spencer was almost leaning against Jon – not quite, but almost – and Mikey could have sworn he heard Gerard laugh at something that Patrick had said. He also took note that Gerard was leaning up against Frank, who, it seemed, was actually the one having the conversation with Patrick. And Pete was sitting a little ways off, scowling.

Mikey knew that could only mean something bad, and he was right. A few minutes later, Pete stood up suddenly and looked around.

“Frank, can I talk to you?”

“Uh, sure?” The two walked off to the side and began talking feverishly. Mikey wanted to know what they were saying, but he couldn’t hear them and was too lazy to read lips. Just a moment later, no one had to wonder what was happening, because Pete and Frank were yelling instead.

“We wouldn’t even be at this stupid thing in the first place if it wasn’t for you!”

“It’s my fault?” Frank asked. “How is it my fault?”

“You just had to like Patrick! We’re only here because you had to go and like the same person I do!”

“What?” Frank shook his head. “What the fuck are you talking about? I like Gerard, dude.”

“Huh?”

“You like Patrick?”

“You like Gerard?”

It was then that the two of them realized that twelve other people were staring at them, including the two they had just mentioned by name. Patrick, Frank, and Pete all looked like they were ready to die, and Gerard was blushing more furiously than Mikey had ever seen.

“Well,” Ray said, breaking the awkward silence. “How about that last activity?”

 

-

 

Admittedly, Ray had known something would go wrong at the teamwork day. But he’d expected a lot worse. Sure, lots of people ended up with egg in their hair and Brendon had fucked up his ankle and Patrick and Gerard had been blushing for ten solid minutes, but, overall, it could have been marginally worse. 

He was pretty pleased with himself.

But there was still the obstacle course. The blindfolded obstacle course. The blindfolded obstacle course that was mostly Mikey’s idea, so Ray had someone to blame just in case anything went horribly wrong.

Ray stood at the start of the course, waiting for each team to finish choosing who would be blindfolded and who would be telling them where to go.

Actually, everyone was done, and they were all waiting on Patrick and Gerard, who were off to the side, whispering feverishly about something. When they finished, they took their positions and Ray put the blindfold on Patrick. Before saying ‘go’, he stepped back and looked at their lineup. 

Dallon, Jon, William, Joe, Patrick, and Frank were all blindfolded.

Something was going to go horribly wrong.

Ray yelled out “go!” and chaos, did, in fact, immediately ensue. Ray and Mikey moved to the other end of the obstacle course, watching everything unfold.

“I honestly should have brought popcorn,” Mikey said. “This is entertaining as fuck.”

Ray had to admit, it was pretty fun to watch, and to listen to. From one side there were shouts of “Jon it’s an obstacle course you can’t just sit down” “Life is devoid of meaning” “JON” and “Joe, go to the right” “Your right or my right” “Joe we’re facing the same way”. On his other side he heard “Patrick walk faster” “I’ll probably fall” “WALK FASTER” and such an amount of yelling between Pete and Frank that he couldn’t actually tell who was saying what.

“Dallon, go to the left.”

“Dallon, if you go to left you’re going to fall over Jon. Don’t listen to anything Brendon is telling you to do.”

“Brendon,” Ray said. “Stop trying to make Dallon fall over people.”

“It’s funny!”

Ray didn’t argue, just went back to watching. As he did, he noticed that Gabe and William were working so well together that they were much closer to the finish line than anyone else was. A few minutes later, Ray announced them the winners of the obstacle course, as well as the overall unofficial winners of the teamwork day. Ray saw Gabe pull William in for something that was almost a hug but much more awkward and wondered if anything was going on there. He didn’t have much time to think about it, because Brendon started complaining. Loudly.

“They won all three! That’s totally not even fair.”

“They won all three because the world is a cruel and unjust place, Brendon,” Jon said.

“No, they won all three because they tried to work together, not make their partner trip over other people or purposefully twist their own ankles,” Ray corrected. Brendon huffed, but said nothing else.   
After everything was cleaned up, Ray watched as all of them left. He watched as Gabe and William left together, pushing their shoulders past each other’s. He watched everyone’s movements as they left and saw them laughing and acting like friends and he almost wanted to cry because, hey, maybe the teamwork day had actually done something.

“That wasn’t too bad,” Mikey said, coming up beside him. 

“Brendon twisted his ankle, your brother got bitten, and Joe will be washing egg out of his hair for days,” Ray countered. Mikey shot him a look and Ray grinned, wrapping an arm around Mikey’s waist. “You’re right, Mikeyway. It wasn’t too bad.”


	15. Chapter 15

Gabe Saporta was never nervous. At least, not on the outside. He always tried to stay calm, to make sure everyone around him thought he was cool and collected.

Right now, however, Gabe Saporta was very nervous.

It was the fucking Friday he’d been waiting for all week, when he would finally get to talk to someone about his feelings or whatever. He’d had six people that day ask him if he was alright (he wasn’t), and he’d almost talked to William about it (he didn’t). And now he was standing outside of the house Ray had told him about, waiting to go in and freaking out because he knew when he did that he’d have to tell someone everything he’d been thinking about for weeks: that he was maybe (probably) gay and that he maybe (definitely) had feelings for his maybe (probably) heterosexual roommate and that he was maybe (definitely) fucked. 

Despite all of that, he took a deep breath and opened the door. 

He walked in, saw thirteen oddly familiar faces, and walked right back out.

When he was back outside he just kind of sank to the ground, back against the wall. All of them were in there. Every single fucking person he’d actually kind of stopped hating at Ray’s teamwork thing was in there and they saw him and now they knew and he couldn’t tell if he wanted to die or scream for the rest of eternity or both.

“Gabe?”

He looked up and of-fucking-course William was standing there, hair falling in his face, worried look in his eyes.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t seem fine.”

“I’m fine.”

“Is this what you were freaking out about all day?” Gabe nodded. “You could have told me.”

“Told you what? Told you that I was horrified all day because I was going to have to tell a complete stranger that I think I’m gay and have feelings for my fucking roommate?”

“What?” Gabe knew he’d fucked up, but he couldn’t change anything now. 

“I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s weird! Because I’m supposed to hate you or something, and because we’re roommates, and because you’re straight.” Gabe stopped, expecting something in return, but William just started giggling.

“Gabe, we’re standing outside of an LGBT safehouse that we both just walked out of, and you think I’m straight?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, I’m not. I don’t actually know what I am, but I’m not straight.” Gabe nodded. “And, really, you could’ve told me about the feelings thing.”

“Easy for you to say. You aren’t the one who just fucking embarrassed yourself in front of the person you like.” He stopped. “Twice.”

“That’s true,” William said. “But, hey, now I don’t have to.”

“Huh?”

“I like you too, dumbass,” William said, and closed the gap in between them and then William was kissing him and Gabe didn’t really know what to do because he hadn’t thought this would actually happen so he just stood there for a minute before he started kissing William back. When he did, William hummed with satisfaction and wrapped his arms around Gabe’s waist and Gabe decided that he could get used to this.

“Hey, look who finally got their shit together, guys!” Gabe and William jumped apart to see Pete peeking his head out of the front door. “If you two are done making out, Jack and Alex kind of want to get started.” Pete walked back in, leaving the door open, and William took Gabe’s hand and led him inside. 

“Are you guys gonna stop staring?” Gabe asked, looking around at everyone else. 

“It’s just a relief to know that at least two of you can get it together and stop being idiots,” Ray said. He looked over at Jack and Alex, who nodded and introduced themselves.

“Okay, I mean, we can just jump in if you guys want us to? Ray said it might be more helpful than anything else to just go over different orientations and explain them, so that’s what we’ll do,” Jack explained, then looked to Alex, a huge smile on his face.

“Right, so,” Alex started. Gabe listened and stayed focused as much as he could with William’s hand in his, pressed up against his side. When Alex started explaining what pansexuality was, Gabe decided that it fit him. When Alex explained asexuality, Gabe saw William smile. He also saw Ray reach across and squeeze Mikey’s hand there. He saw different reactions from everyone as different things were explained (Patrick almost started crying when Jack and Alex got to demisexuality) and, when they were done, Gabe saw something else.

He saw that this place, the house, with these people, was special. 

He thought maybe everyone else saw that, too.

 

-

 

When Jack and Alex wrapped up everything they had to say, everyone decided that they were going to stay for a little while longer. They sat around, talking about nothing in particular, until Jack and Alex joined them.

“So,” Alex said. “Pete said something about Gabe and William finally getting their shit together. Were you guys waiting on anyone else to do that?”

“The only ones we weren’t waiting on were Ray and Mikey,” Brendon said from his spot on the floor. There was a hum of agreement.

“What?” Gerard asked.

“Did you, uh,” Frank started. “Did you not notice? Ray and Mikey have been dating for, like, months. Everyone knew that. I knew it before I even met you.”

“It was technically supposed to be a secret,” Ray said. “But, y’know, who cares.”

“Dude,” Gerard whined. “You’re dating my brother. That’s really gay.”

“Gerard, you are not straight, sitting in an LGBT safehouse, with a lot of other people who also are not straight. You live in the gayest dorm on campus. You’re dating me,” Frank said. “You can’t tell them that they’re really gay. You’re also really gay.” Gerard huffed, but said nothing.

“Aw, you guys got your shit together, too,” Pete said.

“Mhmm,” Frank hummed. “So did you and Patrick, I take it.” Patrick’s face instantly went beet red, which Gerard apparently thought was the funniest thing ever, because it took Frank a solid ten minutes to calm him down. Gabe didn’t participate in any conversation, just squeezed William’s hand and looked on.

At the end of the night, when everyone was leaving, Gabe decided something.

He decided these people were his best friends, and he made a mental note to thank Ray for that later.


	16. Chapter 16

The only day of the week William and Gabe didn’t get to see each other in the morning was Thursday. Gabe had a class, like, first thing in the morning, and William had one that started before Gabe got back. 

That was how Gabe ended up the only one in the room one day and saw one of William’s care packages sitting on his bed, already opened. William had been getting them from his mom since the beginning of the semester, and Gabe never actually bothered to ask what was in them. And, sure, he was kind of curious about it, but he knew he shouldn’t go through it. And he didn’t. He knew he shouldn’t read the note lying next to the box, either, and he really didn’t mean to.

There wasn’t much written on it, just a few lines of cursive.

Love and miss you, butterfly. Wish you were back home.  
Love, Mom

Gabe read it once and stepped away, with a feeling almost like he was invading something too personal, something he wasn’t meant to see.

A few minutes later, William came in the room. They said hi, they kissed, and they went about their business. For a few minutes, at least.

“I read your letter,” Gabe blurted out. “You, uh, you left it out on your bed. I didn’t mean to.” He thought William was mad, but the other boy just nodded.

“Oh. Uh, okay. Thanks for telling me.” They were silent for a moment until Gabe spoke up again.

“Can I ask why your mom calls you butterfly?” William looked almost taken aback, but nodded again.

“Yeah. It’s just because of that butterfly effect thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Uh, it’s that thing that says the smallest particle causes a minor shift, but it’s enough to skew an entire system.” He stopped, and Gabe was a little confused. “So, no matter how small your actions may be, they still make a difference and you’re still important. She’s just reminding me that I’m important.” Gabe nodded, and was silent for a moment before speaking again.

“Can I call you butterfly, too?” William looked sort of shocked.

“Sure, if you want. Why?”

“Just, what you just said. I want to remind you that you’re important.” William smiled and walked over to Gabe, wrapping his arms around him. Gabe returned the affection, and they stood like that for a while. “Don’t forget that you’re important, mariposa.” 

“Mariposa?”

“It’s the Spanish word for butterfly. Kind of my own way to remind you that you’re important, I guess.” William stepped back and looked at him.

“I love you.”

“Te amo también, mariposa.”


	17. Chapter 17

Ray couldn’t exactly remember who had mentioned a pizza party in the first place. When they had all left the house that Friday night, someone had mentioned it, and everyone agreed. So all of them (almost all of them- no one could find Joe, not even Andy, his own boyfriend) were now sitting in the lounge, waiting for the pizza to be delivered.

“I’m fucking cold,” Dallon complained from his spot on the couch.

“Then get a blanket out of that closet, you whiny baby,” Brendon retorted. Ray had been absolutely right when he said the two would be a train wreck as a couple (but they wouldn’t have to worry about it- Brendon had revealed to everyone that he was aromantic the same night they were all at the house). In fact, he had been absolutely right about all of the couples, something he didn’t hesitate to point out when he could.

“DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK,” Dallon yelled suddenly, staring into the closet. Brendon twisted himself so he was lying on the ground and looked into the closet.

“Guys,” he said. “I found Joe!” A moment later Joe clambered out of the closet, went over to Andy, and curled into his side. Ray was sitting back, watching everyone else, when Mikey came and sat down, leaning against him.

“Y’know,” he said. “I guess you made a pretty good matchmaker.”

“I guess so,” Ray laughed, pressing a kiss against Mikey’s head.

“Aw, dude,” Gerard yelled from across the room. “That’s my brother! You guys are being really gay.”

“Well, look around,” Patrick said. “All of us are.”

“Still,” Gerard said. He stopped complaining when Frank pulled him down onto the couch and against his side.

“Guys,” Pete said. “Not to, like, kill the mood or anything, but where’s the fucking pizza?” Everyone turned to look at Gabe.

“What?” William, who was lying across his lap, looked up at him.

“You were supposed to order the pizza.”

“I was?”

“Gabe!” A few of them yelled. William just laughed.

“I’ll go order some.”

They sat and talked about nothing in particular until William came back and announced that the pizza would be there in thirty minutes, give or take a few.

“Time isn’t real,” Jon protested. Spencer hit him on the arm.

“Holy shit, man,” Joe said. “I’m not even high and I’m too high for this.” 

Despite Jon’s insistence that time did not exist, the pizza was there in thirty minutes. Again they sat and talked amongst themselves, about nothing in particular.

“Dude!” Patrick called out when Gerard took a slice of pizza off of his plate. “That was mine! The boxes are right over there, there’s more pizza.”

“Yeah,” Gerard said. “But I don’t wanna get up.”

“You’re a dick.”

“Takes one to know one.”

A while later, Jack and Alex showed up per request of Ray (and everyone else). They joined in on the pizza and the conversation and there was a collective agreement in the group that it was the most fun any of them had had in a while. It was around midnight when Jack and Alex were going to head back to the house, when everything was cleaned up, when they were all going to go to their actual rooms, and Ray and Mikey were about halfway to the stairs when Gabe called out to get Ray's attention.

“Oh, Ray! I wanted to thank you.”

“What for?”

“The teamwork day.” There was a sound of semi disagreement from a few people.

“Really?”

“Not just that,” Gabe said, taking William’s hand and looking around. “I wanted to thank you for introducing me to my best friends.”

At that, there was a collective noise of agreement, which was a noise Ray had started to get used to hearing. He nodded back in the direction of the group- they were his best friends, too.

“I’m glad I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done! i hope you enjoyed this and if you want to talk to me about it i'm also stumphurley over on tumblr~


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